Scottish police had information that might have changed the outcome of the Lockerbie bombing trial, a BBC TV programme has learned.

The information could have affected the credibility of key evidence, but was not passed to the defence team.

Libyan national Abdelbaset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is serving life for killing 270 people in the 1988 bombing.

A prosecution witness had seen a picture linking al-Megrahi to the bombing before he identified him.

Questionable identification

Al-Megrahi, 56, who maintains he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, has been granted leave to appeal against his conviction for a second time.

One significant reason for the appeal is that Tony Gauci, who picked al-Megrahi out in a line-up, had looked at a magazine photograph of him just four days before he made the identification.

BBC TV programme The Conspiracy Files: Lockerbie has now seen documentary evidence that Scottish police knew this was the case.

That information should have been passed to the defence, but the disclosure did not take place.

In the same programme Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi, who many believe is being groomed to succeed his father, has called the families of the 1988 Lockerbie air disaster "greedy" and "materialistic".